Mailers aim to sway us on Kansas Supreme Court amendment, but mostly they deserve the dust bin
Kansans have been swamped by mailers about the judicial selection amendment on the ballot Aug. 4. (Photo by Eric Thomas for Kansas Reflector)
I messaged my friends and family this week asking for political mailers that they received. The replies that I got were nearly identical:
I think I tossed them.
I trash them as they come in.
They went out with the recycling yesterday.
Ha. I just trashed/destroyed them last night.
Maybe “destroyed” is a bit harsh, but it’s the same in our house. Most political mailers addressed to us don’t even make it in the house from the mailbox — they go straight into the garage recycling bin.
For that reason, it’s interesting to see how Kansas campaigns try to reach voters when we see each slick cardstock design as junk mail. Our culture’s attention span to media messages gets shorter each year, so the design, imagery and words on political mailers must cut right to the point.
Along with a mixed bag related to candidate elections, my neighbors and I mostly receive mailers related to the amendment that would establish direct elections of Kansas Supreme Court justices. The message here is even simpler than a candidate election, where voters need to remember a name.
Here, as the mailers make clear, it’s just “yes” (establish elections) or “no” (maintain the current process).
What did I see? Blunt messaging and simple images, aimed at catching our reluctant gaze and quickly persuading us.
Vote yes
The mailers for “yes” come with conservative messaging from political action committees such as the Prairie Fire PAC, connected with Attorney General Kris Kobach, and Americans for Prosperity, founded by the Koch brothers of Wichita.
Two recent “yes” mailers borrow the look of official government mailings. One of them combines a warning symbol, the words “IMPORTANT NOTICE” and a yellow warning to “DO NOT DISCARD.” Using an aesthetic that looks like it came from the local government (which is to say it’s hammerhead ugly) is a clever tactical twist, making the mailer stand out from the polished noise of the PACs.
The look also associates the message of “VOTE YES” with a mailing that could come from the election office. One mailer provides early voting locations as the county board of elections might do.
Designers further connect the “yes” campaign with civic responsibility by emphasizing the image of “I Voted” stickers. One mailing shows folks with the stickers on their chests, pointing to them in case we missed it. The image of a circular button dominates another mailing.
The words of the “yes” campaign go even further, branding the decision as the “RIGHT TO VOTE AMENDMENT,” suggesting that we “LET THE VOTERS DECIDE.”
You might, like me, see hypocrisy in conservative voices celebrating the right to vote as they simultaneously work to suppress voting in many other ways. Nevertheless, it’s a patriotic, wholesome and effective association. Even if it doesn’t address the deeper issue actually on the ballot, how do you dispute the virtue of voting?
All of this seems legitimate if not clever political messaging on behalf of PACs pushing voters toward yes.
However, a pair of Americans for Prosperity Kansas mailings dip into the political muck in encouraging “yes” votes. My neighbor received a mailing promising three “FACTS” about the amendment. Instead, the mailing delivers partisan rhetoric such as, “The Kansas Supreme Court has been too soft on crime!” and “The ones controlling the court are lying to you.”
So much for facts.
The biggest fumble came from a mailing that boldly centers all-caps text on a yellow background: “YOU DESERVE THE RIGHT.” There’s more than one way to read that.
One option? “You deserve the power to use the ballot box to vote for the Supreme Court in Kansas” aligns with their campaign. However, I also read it as being about being stuck in Kansas with conservative politicians at the helm, as in “You deserve the disastrous politics of rightwing politicians, since you voted for them, you Kansas dummies.”
The second meaning seems like a tough appeal, especially to Johnson County voters who are gradually shifting away from the Republican Party.
Both of the Americans For Prosperity Kansas mailers use a blue-and-yellow color scheme, which conjures the color scheme of the state flag. Another association might be politically familiar if you were in Kansas during the 2022 vote related to abortion rights. In that election, PACs that wanted us to vote no (a progressive vote to protect abortion rights) used blue and yellow on their yard signs.
Not to mention, during the last few months, signs dotting the yards and medians of Johnson County use the same color scheme — but those ask us to vote “no.”
Using the blue-and-yellow palette here for the “yes” campaign might be an effort to sway (if not confuse) moderate or progressive voters. Maybe it’s just the state flag.
Finally, from all of the “yes” mailings, my nomination for the most effective distillation of why to vote yes: “Only Kansas has an oddball system where lawyers, not voters, choose the judges.” That single line does so much — targeting the novelty of the current system, playing on cultural distrust of lawyers and pointing to voters being robbed of their power.
Vote no
Unsurprisingly, the mailers for vote “no” used quite different techniques.
Of the six mailers that I collected, the most common approach was a two-step: an appeal to expertise while using Kobach as an adversary. Each of these mailers was sent by Kansas United for Impartial Courts, chaired by Micah Kubic, who also works as executive director of the ACLU of Kansas.
Mailers presented a few different authorities, including former Kansas Supreme Court Chief Justice Lawton Nuss (“I’m voting NO because our Supreme Court is NOT FOR SALE.”) and OB/GYN physician Selina Sandoval — a mailing that connected a vote against the amendment with the protection of abortion rights.
With these authority figures staring solemnly into the camera, the vote appears grave — especially when paired with a somber, black background for the text.
From the same group, I received a similarly designed mailer with a woman from Lawrence quoted as saying, “We already decided this.” It’s a nod to the 2022 vote on the “Value Them Both” abortion amendment.
More broadly, those words play on our collective fatigue with politics, politicians and their games. The mailer rolls its eyes that conservatives in Kansas can’t get the message. Those words can also be read as voicing frustration about President Donald Trump, whose election denialism in 2020, was the ultimate political example of “we already decided this.”
None of the vote “no” messaging portrays hope. Instead, the mailers are mired in disorganization, negativity and opposition.
One folded mailer promises, “HERE’S THE TRUTH,” but then delivers a buckshot pattern of all-caps, bold-faced and underlined assertions that don’t cohere around a central political idea. The random visuals include a handshake, people voting and shoes striding across a textured floor. What are voters to summon from that?
Just how little positivity is in the mailers for the vote “no” effort? Take this quiz for me.
Taken from a no-frills, black-and-white mailer from the same PAC, one set of verbs below describes what will happen if you vote “yes.” The other describes the effects of voting “no.” See if you can tell which is which.
List #1: replaces / enables / makes it easier / increases
List #2: retains / shields / continues / keeps
The first list is clearly more positive — yet, it describes the vote “yes” initiative. Those word choices portray action and progress, while the second list is verbal molasses, appealing to tradition, if not intransigence. It’s baffling that these are the words that the PAC used to frame the choices in their own mailer.
Kansas United for Impartial Courts found a more effective message and design with a vertical mailer showing a full-bleed photo of Kobach’s face obscured by text reading: “SO NOW THEY’RE TRYING AGAIN.” Extra points to the graphic designer who found a way to allow one of Kobach’s eyes to peek creepily through the cluster of words.
It’s tempting to say that the PAC is painting Kobach as the bogeyman, but Kobach legitimately is the opposition here, since he leads a rival PAC supporting the amendment. He slides easily into the role of villain, encouraged by his deep unpopularity statewide. Voters who realistically could be persuaded to vote “no” likely don’t like Kobach, even before they open their mail.
The strongest expression of the vote “no” messaging? “This amendment is an attempt to take away our power and ban abortion.” It is more direct than some of the other confused language in vote “no” mailers.
We might believe that mailers aren’t significant, given our boredom, if not irritation, at receiving them. It’s also possible that with the election’s timing — a midterm, primary election — every voter swayed by the mailbox will matter.
Eric Thomas teaches visual journalism and photojournalism at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.